Golson and baseball

Below is the text from Mike Bianco’s answer to the Senquez Golson question.

It’s lengthy and informative.

When Golson first tried to play both football and baseball he didn’t appear to be mature enough to pull off playing two sports in college. The talent wasn’t then and isn’t now the question.

Two years later I wonder if the maturity has changed. My guess is it has, that there’s a better understanding of the demands made by each sports and the commitment required by any athlete who plays either.

The hamstring makes all this a non-issue, but it is interesting conversation.

At least this much is certain about Golson and his brief fling with baseball as a freshman. He had fun. I think he enjoyed leading the “Love is Gone” as much as anything else.

The two-sport question won’t be a hindrance for Golson in the scenario laid out by Bianco below.

What the hamstring means for Golson regarding spring football remains to be seen, but after two years in the system if he needs to be limited in the spring that’s not terrible. The Rebels need to go into August with two healthy corners and not have to rush to get guys ready the way they did in the run-up to the Vanderbilt opener.

Here’s Bianco:

“Senquez came in about three weeks ago and wanted to play baseball this year. We sat down and talked about it. One of the things that is a difficult situation for everybody involved in college baseball is, we’re the only sport in the NCAA that has a roster limitation, not scholarship limitation. We can only have 35 guys on a roster that can participate in baseball. We have to make that decision before the first game.

“When Senquez came to me we talked about it. Do you have to play right now? What happens if you don’t start? Are you wiling to hang in there? These are all difficult questions. The way we left it was let’s go for the next three weeks and let’s see how good you can be.

“From a human standpoint you think here’s a kid that hasn’t played baseball in a year and a half, he’s got no chance. From reality, you watch him and the first weekend he gets four hits. He’s a super talent, and we talked the end of last week. He pulled his hamstring after the first weekend which will put him down for about a month.

“A guy hasn’t played baseball in a year and half, pulls his hamstring and has to sit out a month, the chances of him getting on the field and contributing right away aren’t real good. By that time spring football will be rolling around. The best thing for him right now is to be what we call a non-roster player. He can practice baseball, he just can’t practice with the team. He’ll come over and hit with coach Godwin and take fly balls when he can this spring when he’s healthy. He’ll be a football player full-time and continue to work on his baseball skills, which he hadn’t done much. He’ll finish out his senior year of football and then come back here in January. At that point he can focus on being a baseball player full-time.”